Umeå University
This is a published version of a paper published in International Journal of Medical Education.
Citation for the published paper:
Diderichsen, S., Andersson, J., Johansson, E., Verdonk, P., Lagro-Janssen, T. et al.
(2011)
"Swedish medical students' expectations of their future life"
International Journal of Medical Education, 2: 140-146 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5116/ijme.4ec5.92b8
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International Journal of Medical Education. 2011; 2:140-146 ISSN: 2042-6372
DOI: 10.5116/ijme.4ec5.92b8
140
© 2011 Saima Diderichsen et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use of work provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Swedish medical students’ expectations of their future life
Saima Diderichsen
1, Jenny Andersson
1, Eva E. Johansson
1, Petra Verdonk
2, Antoine Lagro-Janssen
3, Katarina Hamberg
11
Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Family Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden
2
VU University Medical Center, Dept. Medical Humanities, EMGO Institute for health and care research, The Netherlands
3
Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Department of Primary and Community Care, Centre for Family Medicine, Geriatric and Public Health. Unit Women’s Studies Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Accepted: November 17, 2011
Abstract
Objectives: To investigate future life expectations among male and female medical students in their first and final year.
Methods: The study was cross-sectional and conducted at a Swedish medical school. Out of 600 invited students, 507 (85%) answered an open-ended question about their future life, 298 (59%) first-year students and 209 (41%) last-year students. Women constituted 60% of the respondents. A mixed model design was applied; qualitative content analysis was utilized to create statistically comparable themes and categories.
Results: Students’ written answers were coded, categorized and clustered into four themes: “Work”, “Family”, “Leisure”
and “Quality of personal life”. Almost all students included aspects of work in their answers. Female students were
more detailed than male ones in their family concerns.
Almost a third of all students reflected on a future work-life balance, but considerations regarding quality of personal life and leisure were more common among last-year stu- dents.
Conclusions: Today’s medical students expect more of life than work, especially those standing on the doorstep of working life. They intend to balance work not only with a family but also with leisure activities. Our results reflect work attitudes that challenge the health care system for more adaptive working conditions. We suggest that discus- sions about work-life balance should be included in medical curricula.
Keywords: Medical students, gender, future expectations, physician’s role, work-life balance
Introduction
As in several other Western countries, Sweden has seen a marked increase of female medical students over the past century.
1-5In a decade or two, this changing composition in medical schools will replace the earlier male predominance with a slight majority of female physicians.
1,5A discussion of the possible consequences of this so-called “feminization” of medicine is in progress, and one concern that has been described is a future shortage of doctors.
5This concern is primarily based on women physicians working fewer hours than their male counterparts
5-9and the fact that they are underrepresented in some specialties, such as general surgery and orthopedics, while they tend to favor others,
such as gynecology and dermatology.
5,9-11Parallel to this
discussion on workforce implications of feminization,
attention has been paid to a younger generation of physi-
cians who might have other attitudes toward work than
older colleagues. Worries have been raised that the younger
generation of doctors are less committed and less hard-
working.
12In order to understand and predict changes in
attitudes towards work, it is not enough to look at the
working patterns of today’s physicians. We need to ask our
future doctors. This is important, as attitudes, values and
aspirations have long-term impact on labor market behav-
ior and outcomes.
13Research shows that medical students
Correspondence: Saima Diderichsen, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Family Medicine, 901 87 Umeå,
Umeå University, Sweden. Email: saima.diderichsen@gmail.com
Int J Med Educ. 2011; 2:140-146 141 express concerns about how to combine a professional
career with a life outside work.
14-16In the US, a so-called controllable lifestyle has become a determinant in students’
specialty selection criteria. In a Scandinavian study, Aasland et al.
14showed that when students chose their career after completion of medical school, the importance of having a balance between work and private life was important.
The concept of work-life balance and how to define it has been an important topic in research.
17Clark
18described how balance is attained by managing and negotiating the work and family spheres and the borders between them.
Work-life balance can be defined as “satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with a minimum of role conflict”.
18By naming the domain outside work home/family it is implied that this is mainly a women’s issue.
More knowledge about students’ attitudes and concerns regarding their future career are important for health care planners and also for medical teachers involved in educa- tion. What are the crucial work-life issues for today’s students? Hitherto, most research about medical students’
preferences and ideas about their future has been conducted using specific questions about workload and specialty preferences or questionnaires with fixed answers to choose among. What do students wish for in the future if they can formulate the answer themselves?
The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the future life expectations among women and men at the beginning and at the end of medical school, by way of an open-ended question.
Methods
Study design
This study was cross-sectional and the data consisted of first- and last-year medical students’ answers to an open- ended question about their expectations of future life. It was the first question in a questionnaire about gender aspects in medicine. The students were asked to describe their ideal future: “Ideally when I graduate as a physician, my life will look as follows (in the next 10–15 years).” This question was derived from Hoffnung
19, who used it to study college women’s expectations of career, marriage and motherhood.
The open-ended question was followed by background questions about the participants’ age, sex and civil status, and specific questions concerning attitudes to gender issues in medical work and career (not analyzed in this paper).
The participants were medical students at Umeå Uni- versity in Sweden. Twice a year, every January and Septem- ber, a new class enters the medical school. During a two- year period all first-year students from four classes (fall 2006 – spring 2008), and all last-year students from four classes (spring 2007– fall 2008) were invited. The first-year students filled out the questionnaire in their first week of medical school and the last-year students at the end of their
11th and last semester. Participation was voluntary and those agreeing to participate stayed on after an ordinary lecture to answer the confidential questionnaire.
The Ethics Committee at Umeå University has approved this study.
Analysis
Data were analysed using a sequential mixed model de- sign,
20meaning that initial inductive analysis of the free-text answers was conducted and followed by statistical analysis of the elaborated categories. In the first part qualitative content analysis was used
21to elaborate categories that could be analyzed quantitatively in the second part.
Part 1: Elaborating categories
To become familiar with the data and to obtain a sense of the whole, all answers were read by the first author (SD) in search of reoccurring content that could be clustered into categories. The impressions and ideas of this qualitative step were discussed in joint sessions with all authors.
Three authors (SD, EEJ, KH) separately read and cate- gorized the answers from 60 students according to content and meaning. By comparing the categorizations, the label- ing of categories was discussed and reformulated. Based on this, another 60 answers were read, categorized and dis- cussed. This procedure was repeated a few times until the categories created seemed consistent and enough varied to capture the diversity of the answers. A coding schedule of 34 categories was set up, clustered into four emergent themes: “Work”, “Family”, “Leisure” and “Quality of personal life”. The three authors who were involved in the categorizations had no access to information about the students such as sex and age.
The first author (SD) performed the main encoding of all answers by filling out the schedule. If the category was represented in an answer it was marked with 1, otherwise with 0. One answer would normally be represented in several categories.
In order to create a more lucid presentation of the re- sults, the 34 categories were reduced to 18 by merging similar small categories. For example, the category “Hob- bies” included less than 8% of the students and therefore was merged with “Spare-time travel” into the larger catego- ry “Travel and hobbies”.
Part 2: Quantitative analysis
Proportions of themes and categories were compared between men and women, first- and last-year students, using Pearson chi-square test (significance at p < .05;
specified at p < .01 and p < .001). SPSS 17.0 for Mac OSX was used.
To check the reliability of the coding, three researchers
(SD, KH, EEJ) encoded 100 randomly chosen answers
separately according to the 34 categories used in the main
coding. The categorizations were then compared. A total of
Diderichsen et al. Students’ expectations of their future life
142
46 discrepancies were identified. With 100 answers, 34 categories and three researchers, the percentage of discrep- ancies was less than 1%. Themes (clustered categories),
categories, and examples of quotations within each category are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Themes (bolded), categories, category descriptions and examples of statements included in each category
Theme / Category Description Example
Work
I like my job Described work as stimulating and nice or having nice
colleagues. “I have a nice job with nice colleagues”
I know what I want to be One or two specialties were mentioned in the answer. Research
and career aspirations were also included here. “I want to work as a general practitioner”
The world is my workplace Mentioned working in another country or abroad with
humanitarian aid. “I will work in any country in the world”
I am a good doctor Expressed being a secure or good physician. “I am good at what I do”, “I am beginning to take on the physician’s role”
Full-time or more Described working full-time or that they intended to work a lot. “I work a lot”
Part-time Mentioned working less than full-time or that they intend to work
“a little”. “I work 75%”
Work – not specified Expressed something work-related without being specific
enough to be included in any of the work categories. “I work as a doctor”
Family
Children Mentioned children or that they might have children. “Three children”
Partner Intimate relations of any kind. “I have found a life partner”
Family – not specified Included family without specifying it as partner and/or children. “Family”
Leisure
Travel and hobbies Described traveling in their leisure time or having a hobby such
as playing the piano. “Plenty of vacation and trips”
“Acknowledged cat breeder”
Friends and relatives Included relatives and friends in their answer. “Have time to see relatives and friends without having bad conscience”
Physical activity Mentioned doing physical exercise such as a sport. “I exercise a lot”, “Climbing, skiing and outdoor life”
Leisure – not specified Included leisure without specifying it, as friends, a leisure
activity or a hobby. “I have a meaningful leisure time”
Quality of personal life
Work-life balance Manageable or flexible workload, balance between work and
private life meaning leisure and/or family. “I work full-time but I want to have time for leisure as well”, “I do not work too much”
Happiness Described happiness of some sort, such as having a loving
family, good relationships, harmony or a happy life in general. “Life is still exciting!”, “Children who give me joy”,
“I live in harmony”
Health Included being healthy or having healthy children. “Me and my family are all healthy and doing well”
Wealth Described a wealthy lifestyle or a high salary. “Good salary, a pool inside”
Results
Out of 600 invited students, 507 (85%) answered the open- ended question, 305 (60%) women and 202 (40%) men. The response rate was 87% among the women and 81% among the men. First-year students accounted for 298 answers (59%) and last-year students for 209 answers (41%), giving an answer rate of 90% among first-year students and 78%
among last-year students. The final-year students were on average 5 years older (Table 2). Therefore it is not surpris- ing that about half of the first-year students compared with more two thirds of the final-year students had a partner.
Also, male students in their final year were more likely to have children (19%) compared with their first-year peers (4%).The answers to the open-ended question varied in length from one word to several sentences, and were on average 25 words long. As outlined in the methods section, the content of the answers was sorted in 18 categories, which in turn were clustered into four themes. Comparing the occurrence of the themes among all students showed that “Work” (96%) and “Family” (77%) were included by a
majority of the students, while “Leisure” (38%) and “Quality of personal life” (51%), were slightly less frequent. Below we compare the distribution of answers in the themes and categories between first- and last-year students, and be- tween male and female students.
Comparing first- and last-year students
Students in their first and final year differed significantly in three out of four themes, and in a majority of the categories (Table 3). “Work” was the most common theme in all groups, but it was more frequent in first-year students’
answers than in last-year students’ answers (first-year 97%,
last-year 93%, p < .05). On category level, first-year students
had significantly higher proportions in “I like my job” and
in “The world is my workplace”, implying that first-year
students more often described job satisfaction and working
abroad. Still, “I like my job” was frequent among the last-
year students as well (43%), suggesting that stimulation,
colleagues and workplace attitudes were important at the
end of medical school as well. Working with humanitarian
Int J Med Educ. 2011; 2:140-146 143 aid, a subcategory in “The world is my workplace” was
included by 9% of the first-year students compared to 3% of the last-year students (not shown in table). The category “I know what I want to be”, i.e., having plans for specialty, research or making career advancements, was significantly more common among last-year students. Comments about part-time work were significantly more frequent in last-year students (first-year 4%, last-year 13%, p = 0.000). There was also a tendency that last-year students more often included notions about being a good and confident doctor in their answers, i.e., statements within the category “I’m a good doctor”, although this was not a significant difference.
The proportion of answers containing aspects of the theme “Family” was similar in first- and last-year students.
However, the proportions of the categories in “Family”
varied between the groups. Last-year students were more specific and significantly more often included partner and children, compared with first-year students who more often just mentioned family without going into any details.
The theme “Leisure” was more frequent in the answers from last-year students (first-year 31%, last-year 47%, p = 0.000). Compared with first-year students they had signifi- cantly higher proportions in the categories “Friends and relatives”, “Travel and hobbies” and “Physical activity”.
The same pattern as in “Leisure” was seen in “Quality of personal life”. While 61% of the last-year students’ answers were represented in this theme, the corresponding propor- tion among first-year students was 44% (p = 0,000). On category level it was significantly more common among last-year students to write about “Happiness” and “Health”.
The category “Wealth”, including for example descriptions of a large house, an expensive car or a high salary, occurred in 13% of the first-year students compared with 19% of the last-year students.
Comparing male and female first- and last-year stu- dents
Table 3 shows that the differences described above between first- and last-year students were related to gender. In the theme “Work”, the difference between first- and last-year students study was explained by the fact that male – not female – last-year students mentioned work aspects less often than their first-year counterparts. The higher propor- tions of the categories “I know what I want to be” and “I am a good doctor” in last-year students’ answers was chiefly explained by the fact that last-year women emphasized those aspects more than other participants did. A relatively small proportion of the students mentioned working “part- time”, but interestingly the largest difference was displayed among the male students (first-year 2%, last-year 16%).
Last-year students being more specific about family as- pects were a result of the female students’ considerations.
Among women there was a shift from “Family – not speci- fied” in their first year to “Children” and “Partner” in their
final year. For example, they described how many children they planned for or gave details about their partner. The higher proportions of last-year students represented in the theme of “Leisure” were explained by the fact that women in their final year emphasized “Travel and hobbies” more often than other students and that male last-year students were more concerned with “Friends and relatives” than their first-year peers.
Table 2. Student characteristics (N = 507)
Variable
Men P value Women P value
First year n = 125 Last year
n = 77 First year
n = 173 Last year n = 132
Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
Age 23 (4) 28 (3) < .001 22 (4) 27 (3) < .001
n (%) n (%)
Civil Status
Single 63 (50) 25 (32)
< .05 96 (55) 37 (28)
< .001 Partner 62 (50) 52 (68) 77 (45) 95 (72) Children
No 119 (96) 62 (81)
< .001 162 (94) 121 (92) Yes 5 (4) 15 (19) 10 (6) 11 (8) NS
NS= Non-significant
The higher frequency of last-year students included in the theme “Quality of personal life” can chiefly be explained by the large difference between men in their first and final year.
The same pattern was seen in the category “Work-life balance”, which occurred in similar proportions in first- and last-year women’s answers, whereas male last-year students included “Work-life balance” significantly more often (34%) than first-year ones (19%). Looking more closely at the answers in “Work-life balance”, it was noticed that 53% of the female answers specified “Work-life bal- ance” as having time for family, while the corresponding proportion among male students was 36% (not shown in table).
When comparing the answers between all men and all women, we found some significant differences (marked with a superscript “a” in table 3). More women wrote about work and family aspects and their answers were more often included in the categories, “I like my job”, “Children” and
“Travel and Hobbies”. The male students’ answers were more often than their female peers sorted in the category
“Work – not specified”.
Discussion
This cross-sectional study explored future life expectations of medical students by means of an open-ended question.
The analysis of the free-text answers revealed several differences between first- and last-year students as well as gender differences.
Almost all students mentioned work, but the work theme was less frequent among men in their last year. Male last-year students also mentioned “Quality of personal life”
and “Leisure” more often than their first-year peers.
Diderichsen et al. Students’ expectations of their future life
144
Table 3. Themes (bolded) and categories in medical students’ future life expectations (N = 507)
First yearTotal N = 298
n (%)
Last year Total N = 209
n (%)
P value
Men
P value
Women
P value First year
N = 125 n (%)
Last year N = 77
n (%)
First year N = 173
n (%)
Last year N = 132
n (%)
Work 290 (97) 195 (93) < .05 122 (98) 65 (84) < .001 168 (97) 130 (98) NS
I like my job* 158 (53) 89 (43) < .05 55 (44) 26 (34) NS 103 (60) 63 (48) < .05
I know what
I want to be 70 (23) 82 (39) < .001 28 (22) 26 (34) NS 42 (24) 56 (42) < .01
The world is my
workplace 56 (19) 13 (6) < .001 21 (17) 3 (4) < .01 35 (20) 10 (8) < .01
I am a good doctor 30 (10) 32 (15) NS 12 (10) 8 (10) NS 18 (10) 24 (18) NS
Full-time or more 27 (9) 15 (7) NS 9 (7) 3 (4) NS 18 (10) 12 (9) NS
Part-time 11 (4) 28 (13) < .001 2 (2) 12 (16) < .001 9 (5) 16 (12) < .05
Work
– not specified* 42 (14) 28 (13) NS 25 (20) 11 (14) NS 17 (10) 17 (13) NS
Family 228 (77) 160 (77) NS 89 (71) 53 (69) NS 139 (80) 107 (81) NS
Children* 136 (46) 119 (57) < .05 51 (41) 35 (45) NS 85 (49) 84 (64) < .05
Partner 107 (36) 100 (48) < .01 49 (39) 33 (43) NS 58 (34) 67 (51) < .01
Family
– not specified 72 (24) 28 (13) < .01 27 (22) 10 (13) NS 45 (26) 18 (14) < .01
Leisure 93 (31) 98 (47) < .001 36 (29) 33 (43) < .05 57 (33) 65 (49) < .01
Travel and hobbies* 37 (12) 50 (24) < .01 14 (11) 11 (14) NS 23 (13) 39 (30) < .001
Friends and relatives 35 (12) 42 (20) < .05 8 (6) 18 (23) < .001 27 (16) 24 (18) NS
Physical activity 20 (7) 26 (12) < .05 6 (8) 9 (12) NS 12 (7) 17 (13) NS
Leisure
– not specified 17 (6) 16 (8) NS 9 (7) 4 (5) NS 8 (5) 12 (9) NS
Quality of
personal life 131 (44) 127 (61) < .001 48 (38) 51 (66) < .001 83 (48) 76 (58) NS
Work-life balance 81 (27) 67 (32) NS 24 (19) 26 (34) < .05 57 (33) 41 (31) NS
Happiness 31 (10) 50 (24) < .001 13 (10) 21 (27) < .01 18 (10) 29 (22) < .01
Health 15 (5) 20 (10) < .05 3 (2) 9 (12) < .01 12 (7) 11 (8) NS
Wealth 39 (13) 39 (19) NS 20 (16) 15 (19) NS 19 (11) 24 (18) NS
NS= Non-significant; * there were significant differences between male and female medical students (p<0.05).